Renzi's Changes To Esa Only A Token Effort

During this week's KMOG Forum with Congressman Renzi, Mr. Renzi did an excellent job of expounding on all the havoc that has been wrought by the environmental lobby and the federal courts due to ESA. Then, he mentions his legislation amending ESA. It was interesting to note that he did not claim that these amendments would eliminate ESA's environmentalist and judicial problems. This was a good thing since, in fact, Renzi's amendments are not a solution to the ESA problem.

Renzi's amendments provide the private property owner more of an opportunity to spend his life, health and financial resources in the federal court system fighting for compensation for property seized or rendered useless by ESA, a process that commonly takes more than a decade. It also provided local and state governments with the opportunity to expend their limited budgets and manpower while functioning as cannon fodder between the federal government's ESA abuses and infuriated private property owners and public property users.

Mr. Renzi's form letter response to my "Repeal the Endangered Species Act" letter was a standard, "I've already made up my mind, don't confuse me with facts" statement. While admitting that ESA has been a disaster, it addressed none of the issues and problems with his token revisions approach to ESA, not the least of which is the Section 20 survey requirement. This section will open the floodgates of environmentalist and federal court interference in both private and public land management. The only way to stop the assault of the environmentalists and federal courts on public and private property is to remove the ESA weapon from their arsenal. If enough pressure could be placed on Mr. Renzi by his legitimate constituents, perhaps he would concern himself more with their needs than those of the environmentalist lobby.